While her schoolmates from East Lancashire went on to join the professions, Anne Savage became a star DJ. She spoke to DAVID HIGGERSON

WHEN DJs are asked to recount a funny incident which has happened to them at a nightclub, it invariably involves someone they never knew at school coming up to them and trying to be their best mate.

Not Anne Savage though. No-one has ever approached her in the box, DJ-ing at events such as Creamfields, Homelands or Global Gathering, and announced they went to school with her. She isn't surprised by this.

"I did go to Westholme," laughs attractive Anne, born in Burnley General Hospital, raised in the Ribble Valley and educated at Blackburn's only private girls' school.

"So perhaps I shouldn't be shocked by that."

"I went on Friends Reunited about a year ago to see what everyone was up to.

"There were lawyers, doctors, businesswomen, but no other DJs. Now there's a surprise!"

Without doubt, Anne is one of the country's leading female DJs.

As well as countless gigs every month across the country -- 14 last month, 13 this month -- Anne is well-respected for the stuff she has done in the studio as well.

She is also one half of the Tidy Girls - the other half being Lisa Lashes -- as is best known for being at the harder end of dance.

So when Anne lived up to a promise to play recently at Blackburn's Barzooka, run by her brother Mick Tattersall, punters got a surprise when she began dropping jazz-funk tracks in with the old classics.

"That was a great night. It was great to go back," said Anne. "It was just a great, intimate venue and good fun. I like playing something different every now and again, and we dropped in some classics there as well."

Those classics may well have been familiar to the regulars of Angels -- which grew into the worldwide-brand known as Retro -- where Anne cut her DJing teeth in the early 1990s.

She said: "It's mad that Angels hasn't happened for over a decade now, and frightening in some ways.

"It was at Angels in Burnley that I got my break, I owe Paul Taylor (DJ behind Retro, also from Burnley) so much. He gave me my chance, doing the warm-up sets at £25 a night. It was a baptism of fire but it's stood me in good stead since."

Dance music wasn't always Anne's bag though -- and it wasn't until the age of 17 that she decided having a go on the decks was what she wanted to do.

Anne said: "I was really into the whole Northern Soul thing and everything from Factory Records, New Order and what have you. I think everyone from the North West was.

"I can remember when I decided I want to have a go at DJing. I was at a club called the Curfew in Accrington, and was watching the DJ. I thought 'I can do that' and it all grew from there. I already had a lot of records to go at from my collection.

"Before Angels, I used to do friends parties and stuff. I also went to, and DJ'd at, a lot of the illegal parties which were going on at the time. It has all taken off from that."

And taken off it has. After Angels, where Anne warmed up for the likes of Carl Cox, came her own residences at Vague and Ark in Leeds.

Stints in Italy, Majorca, Norway, Finland, Germany, Greece, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US have all followed.

In 1998 she played to 33,000 in Johannesburg, and is a regular on KISS TV and MTV among others.

And, of course, Anne is among an elite within the the DJ ranks -- she is a woman DJ.

"Yeah, there are more around than when I started," said Anne: "But not as many as there should be. It's a shame, but I think girls who are good-looking tend to get a helping hand, which isn't fair.

"Some people talk about me being a role model and, while I am aware of my responsibilties, I don't think about that all time. I would like to think more female DJs are breaking through though."

Certainly Anne had a part in breaking one girl into the industry, thanks to her role as a tutor in the Channel Four programme Faking It, where she helped turn a classical cellist into a club DJ in the space of a month.

Anne said: "I was a bit suspicious about doing TV at first because I thought it would be just another Ibiza Uncovered, trying to make the dance scene look really bad.

"But when I realised it wasn't, I really got into it. Sian, the girl who I had to help 'fake it' as a DJ, did really well and, while she still is a classical musician most of the time, she still DJs on a Saturday night.

"I got a really nice feeling from that and it has opened several other doors for me, like a How To DJ DVD as well."

The next six months for Anne will involve less time on the road and more time in he studio. Initally, there's a new dance track called The Hoffman Experience, followed by some more "experimentation" -- including hooking up with Asia's king of Pop, Taz of Stereo Nation.

Anne said: "While I'm known for the harder end of dance, I do like to experiment and styles change and you have to move with that.

"I don't like to pigeon-hole myself that much because the set you play at one venue might be totally different to set you do at the next, because you play what the crowd wants to hear."

Along with her Ministry of Sound radio show, Anne seems to have every base covered. But what does she enjoy the most?

She said: "It's always going to be doing the gigs. You can't beat the feeling of seeing 15,000 people dancing in front of you to the music you are playing. But the smaller places, like Ascension in Manchester, are also excellent. It's different and intimate."

The end of this month should confirm Anne's popularity when DJ magazine publishes its annual Top 100 DJs list, as voted for by clubbers. Last year Anne came number 27.

"Don't mention that," Anne laughed. "Part of you wants to say 'great -- look where I am in this list' but another part of me doesn't want to care because as long as people are enjoying what I do, I'm enjoying it too."

And she confessed: "It doesn't matter where I land in the poll, although I will be looking out for it. It won't change what my ultimate plan is, to come back and settle down in Lancashire, one day."